Critical Thinking Competencies
Critical thinking is to go beyond the passive thinking we do daily, to think about thinking, to criticize the beliefs we hold about the world and how it works, to examine and understand how our thinking works. We do this work to make thinking easier, to actively decide how we live life, to practice being rational creatures. There are some competencies to help us do so.
Argumentation is the art of articulating a reason to justify a position. A position is a statement or claim, an opinion is a belief someone holds, but an argument provides the reasoning to take a position or opinion. We might say “avocados are good,” or “I like avocados,” but we justify these when we say “avocados are healthy, and healthy foods are good fuel for the body.”
Conceptualization challenges us to find a vocabulary word that nicely captures a theme. We read a text and propose a word that fits, summarizes, and names. For instance, with Oedipus we have “destiny” and with Romeo and Juliet we have “tragic romance.”
Interpretation goes beyond informational reading, where we find different possibilities, different perspectives, different meanings to a text or situation. We find the ability to think outside our initial perception when we search for and test multiple ways of understanding.
Problematization asks a thinker to examine a position they hold, to question assumptions, to test whether they have justification to say what they say, to try other options. Problematizing allows us to question our subjectivity.
Questioning is the skill of Socrates we practice to invoke thinking. We explore, we ask for arguments, in a quest to learn about the way each other thinks. The philosopher’s favorite question is “why?”, which implies genesis, causality, motive, motivation. It makes us aware of our thinking and our being, from which we can practice the escalation of mind and being.
In philosophical practice, we do exercises to build critical thinking skills focusing on these competencies.